Coronavirus: Why are survivors being asked to donate plasma?
Health officials in the UK have issued a rallying call for those who have recovered from the coronavirus to donate their plasma.
According to preliminary research, there are three groups of patients whose plasma could have the most potential to help others, due to the antibodies produced by their immune systems when fighting the virus.
These include patients who are over the age of 35, males and those who required hospitalisation.
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is currently appealing to recovered coronavirus patients, particularly those who fall into those three categories, to put themselves forward as plasma donors.
Prof David Roberts, NHSBT’s associate medical director for blood donation, said: “Please help your NHS fight Covid-19. Convalescent plasma donation is safe and easy and you could save lives. If you get the call, please donate.”
Dr Alessandro Giardini, a consultant in the cardiology department of Great Ormond Street Hospital, has been billed as an antibody ‘super donor’ after he spent seven days on a ventilator in intensive care after contracting the virus.
The 46-year-old, from Camden, London, was later found to have the highest antibody level of any recovered patient measured so far, with 40 times the amount typically found in a convalescent plasma donation.
Dr Giardini said that even though it was “scary” to return to a medical environment after his ordeal, he felt that “if there was any chance I could help someone else who was still ill with Covid-19, that I needed to do it”.
Here is everything you need to know about plasma donation.
What is convalescent plasma?
“Plasma is a clear liquid found in your blood that is used for transfusions,” the NHS explains.
1/13
Cheryll Mack, 46, a registered nurse in the emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift outside the hospital where she works. “The Covid-19 spread has affected a lot of livelihood, a lot of people’s lives. It has created a crisis, death in general. So I would like to ask not one single person, but all people worldwide, to converge and join the platform that this is something that nobody can fight individually,” said Mack.
Reuters
2/13
Dr Laura Bontempo, 50, an emergency medicine doctor wears her personal protective equipment she uses when she sees patients, while posing for a photograph after a nine-hour shift, outside the hospital. “The hardest moments have actually been separating families from patients, there is a no-visitor policy now and taking people away from their loved ones is very challenging,” Bontempo said. “I’m used to treating sick patients. I treat sick patients all the time. It’s very different knowing that the patient you are treating, is actually a risk to you as well. That’s the main difference here. No one who works in hospitals is afraid of treating sick people. Just want to keep staff safe and the patients safe at the same time.”
Reuters
3/13
Ernest Capadngan, 29, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment unit poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital. “The hardest moment during the shift was just seeing Covid patients die helpless and without their family members beside them,” Capadngan said.
Reuters
4/13
Martine Bell, 41, a nurse practitioner in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a six-hour shift outside the hospital where she works. “The hardest thing in all of this, has been taking care of fellow healthcare providers. It really hits home and it’s really scary when you see someone that could be you coming in and now you’re taking care of them. It’s also hitting home that once healthcare providers start getting sick, who is going to be taking care of the public,” Bell said. “It’s very stressful, everyone is on edge. We don’t know who’s coming in next, or how sick they’re going to be, or if we are going to get a whole bunch of people or if we’re not going to get no one. It’s a really stressful and just a completely unusual time for all of us.”
Reuters
5/13
Kaitlyn Martiniano, 25, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment poses for a photograph after a 12.5-hour shift, outside the hospital. “We have a lot of patients and they are pretty sick right now but we have not yet been hit as hard as New York or Seattle, so I feel like we are very lucky with that so far. Every day you have to just be optimistic.” Said Martiniano. “I think the reason that we are not being hit as hard right now is because so many things are closed, and because so many people are staying at home.”
Reuters
6/13
Tracey Wilson, 53, a nurse practitioner in an intensive care unit (ICU), poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. “I had a patient fall out of bed today and I had to call his wife and tell her and she couldn’t come see him, even though she pleaded and begged to come see him,” Wilson said. “There is a lot of unknowns and with that unknown is a lot of anxiety and stress that we’re not used to dealing with.”
Reuters
7/13
Meghan Sheehan, 27, a nurse practitioner in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. “I think the hardest moment has been the fear that lives within all of us. There is a lot of unknown right now. We fear what’s going to happen tomorrow, how the emergency department will look next week when we come in. We have fears about our own colleagues, whether they will fall ill. We also fear that we could be asymptomatic carriers and bring this virus home to our families and our loved ones. There has been a lot of fear over our supplies and whether we’ll run out. And then obviously there is the fear that we will see patients and not be able to do everything we normally can to help save patients’ lives,” Sheehan said.
Reuters
8/13
Kimberly Bowers, 44, a nurse practitioner in an ICU, poses for a photograph after a 13-hour shift, outside the hospital. “The hardest moment was a young woman who died and her family wasn’t able to be here with her,” Bowers said. “I think right now, it’s just frustrating and scary just not knowing what comes next.”
Reuters
9/13
Tiffany Fare, 25, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment unit poses for a photograph after a 13-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. “One of the hardest moments was having to see a family member of a Covid patient, say goodbye over an iPad, rooms away. That was a tough one, I can’t imagine how hard it would be to be saying goodbye, you can’t see your loved one and then they’re gone,” Fare said. “My team has been really great to me. We’ve worked really well together and we’ve really come together in this crisis. We don’t really know each other, we all come from different units within the same hospital, so for us to come together and work so well as a team, it’s been a journey but I think that’s what is giving me hope.”
Reuters
10/13
Dr Kyle Fischer, 35, an emergency medicine doctor, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where he works. “Since it’s a new virus, we don’t have any experience with it. For most diseases I am used to seeing it and taking care of it and this, I don’t have any starting place. I know what I’m hearing from New York, I’ve read all of the papers it seems like, but no one knows what the correct answers are, so there’s a huge amount of uncertainty and people are really, really sick. So it’s hard to second guess whether or not you are doing the right thing when you think you are but you never quite know,” said Fischer.
Reuters
11/13
Julia Trainor, 23, a registered nurse at a surgical ICU, poses for a photograph after a 14-hour shift, outside the hospital. “The hardest moment was having to put a breathing tube in my patient who could no longer breathe for herself and after the breathing tube went in, we called her family and the husband, of course, couldn’t visit her because of visitor restrictions at the hospital. So I had to put him on the phone and hold the phone to her ear, as he told her that he loved her so much and then I had to wipe away her tears as she was crying,” said Trainor. “I’m used to seeing very sick patients and I’m used to patients dying but nothing quite like this. In the flip of a switch, without the support, they’re completely isolated. They’re very sick. Some of them recover and some of them don’t. But the hardest part, I would think, is them having to go through this feeling like they are alone.”
Reuters
12/13
Lisa Mehring, 45, a registered nurse who works in a biocontainment unit with Covid-19 patients, poses for a photograph after a 12.5-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works in Maryland. “Seeing these new moms have babies has been the hardest moment along with having do their pumping for the new moms and them not being able to be with their newborn children, it’s hard to think of the family that they are missing,” Mehring said.
Photos Reuters
13/13
Jacqueline Hamil, 30, a registered nurse in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift outside the hospital. “The hardest moment of my shift today, I was in charge, and we had a really sick patient that was in a really, really small room and usually, when we have sick crashing patients, we can have a ton of resources and a ton of staff go in and help with the nurse and the doctors that are taking care of that patient. But due to the patient being ruled out for the coronavirus, we could only have five or six people in the room at a time and putting on all the gowns and gloves and masks and face shields to protect us in case the patient does have coronavirus, it takes a while, so the nurse that was in there, ended up being in the room for you know 6, 7 hours with minimal breaks and it was hard being in charge and knowing that she was stuck in the room and really nothing I could do to help her,” Hamil said.
Reuters
1/13
Cheryll Mack, 46, a registered nurse in the emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift outside the hospital where she works. “The Covid-19 spread has affected a lot of livelihood, a lot of people’s lives. It has created a crisis, death in general. So I would like to ask not one single person, but all people worldwide, to converge and join the platform that this is something that nobody can fight individually,” said Mack.
Reuters
2/13
Dr Laura Bontempo, 50, an emergency medicine doctor wears her personal protective equipment she uses when she sees patients, while posing for a photograph after a nine-hour shift, outside the hospital. “The hardest moments have actually been separating families from patients, there is a no-visitor policy now and taking people away from their loved ones is very challenging,” Bontempo said. “I’m used to treating sick patients. I treat sick patients all the time. It’s very different knowing that the patient you are treating, is actually a risk to you as well. That’s the main difference here. No one who works in hospitals is afraid of treating sick people. Just want to keep staff safe and the patients safe at the same time.”
Reuters
3/13
Ernest Capadngan, 29, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment unit poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital. “The hardest moment during the shift was just seeing Covid patients die helpless and without their family members beside them,” Capadngan said.
Reuters
4/13
Martine Bell, 41, a nurse practitioner in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a six-hour shift outside the hospital where she works. “The hardest thing in all of this, has been taking care of fellow healthcare providers. It really hits home and it’s really scary when you see someone that could be you coming in and now you’re taking care of them. It’s also hitting home that once healthcare providers start getting sick, who is going to be taking care of the public,” Bell said. “It’s very stressful, everyone is on edge. We don’t know who’s coming in next, or how sick they’re going to be, or if we are going to get a whole bunch of people or if we’re not going to get no one. It’s a really stressful and just a completely unusual time for all of us.”
Reuters
5/13
Kaitlyn Martiniano, 25, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment poses for a photograph after a 12.5-hour shift, outside the hospital. “We have a lot of patients and they are pretty sick right now but we have not yet been hit as hard as New York or Seattle, so I feel like we are very lucky with that so far. Every day you have to just be optimistic.” Said Martiniano. “I think the reason that we are not being hit as hard right now is because so many things are closed, and because so many people are staying at home.”
Reuters
6/13
Tracey Wilson, 53, a nurse practitioner in an intensive care unit (ICU), poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. “I had a patient fall out of bed today and I had to call his wife and tell her and she couldn’t come see him, even though she pleaded and begged to come see him,” Wilson said. “There is a lot of unknowns and with that unknown is a lot of anxiety and stress that we’re not used to dealing with.”
Reuters
7/13
Meghan Sheehan, 27, a nurse practitioner in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. “I think the hardest moment has been the fear that lives within all of us. There is a lot of unknown right now. We fear what’s going to happen tomorrow, how the emergency department will look next week when we come in. We have fears about our own colleagues, whether they will fall ill. We also fear that we could be asymptomatic carriers and bring this virus home to our families and our loved ones. There has been a lot of fear over our supplies and whether we’ll run out. And then obviously there is the fear that we will see patients and not be able to do everything we normally can to help save patients’ lives,” Sheehan said.
Reuters
8/13
Kimberly Bowers, 44, a nurse practitioner in an ICU, poses for a photograph after a 13-hour shift, outside the hospital. “The hardest moment was a young woman who died and her family wasn’t able to be here with her,” Bowers said. “I think right now, it’s just frustrating and scary just not knowing what comes next.”
Reuters
9/13
Tiffany Fare, 25, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment unit poses for a photograph after a 13-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. “One of the hardest moments was having to see a family member of a Covid patient, say goodbye over an iPad, rooms away. That was a tough one, I can’t imagine how hard it would be to be saying goodbye, you can’t see your loved one and then they’re gone,” Fare said. “My team has been really great to me. We’ve worked really well together and we’ve really come together in this crisis. We don’t really know each other, we all come from different units within the same hospital, so for us to come together and work so well as a team, it’s been a journey but I think that’s what is giving me hope.”
Reuters
10/13
Dr Kyle Fischer, 35, an emergency medicine doctor, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where he works. “Since it’s a new virus, we don’t have any experience with it. For most diseases I am used to seeing it and taking care of it and this, I don’t have any starting place. I know what I’m hearing from New York, I’ve read all of the papers it seems like, but no one knows what the correct answers are, so there’s a huge amount of uncertainty and people are really, really sick. So it’s hard to second guess whether or not you are doing the right thing when you think you are but you never quite know,” said Fischer.
Reuters
11/13
Julia Trainor, 23, a registered nurse at a surgical ICU, poses for a photograph after a 14-hour shift, outside the hospital. “The hardest moment was having to put a breathing tube in my patient who could no longer breathe for herself and after the breathing tube went in, we called her family and the husband, of course, couldn’t visit her because of visitor restrictions at the hospital. So I had to put him on the phone and hold the phone to her ear, as he told her that he loved her so much and then I had to wipe away her tears as she was crying,” said Trainor. “I’m used to seeing very sick patients and I’m used to patients dying but nothing quite like this. In the flip of a switch, without the support, they’re completely isolated. They’re very sick. Some of them recover and some of them don’t. But the hardest part, I would think, is them having to go through this feeling like they are alone.”
Reuters
12/13
Lisa Mehring, 45, a registered nurse who works in a biocontainment unit with Covid-19 patients, poses for a photograph after a 12.5-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works in Maryland. “Seeing these new moms have babies has been the hardest moment along with having do their pumping for the new moms and them not being able to be with their newborn children, it’s hard to think of the family that they are missing,” Mehring said.
Photos Reuters
13/13
Jacqueline Hamil, 30, a registered nurse in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift outside the hospital. “The hardest moment of my shift today, I was in charge, and we had a really sick patient that was in a really, really small room and usually, when we have sick crashing patients, we can have a ton of resources and a ton of staff go in and help with the nurse and the doctors that are taking care of that patient. But due to the patient being ruled out for the coronavirus, we could only have five or six people in the room at a time and putting on all the gowns and gloves and masks and face shields to protect us in case the patient does have coronavirus, it takes a while, so the nurse that was in there, ended up being in the room for you know 6, 7 hours with minimal breaks and it was hard being in charge and knowing that she was stuck in the room and really nothing I could do to help her,” Hamil said.
Reuters
“It makes up about half of your blood volume and carries red and white blood cells and platelets around the body.”
When you have recovered from a virus, your plasma contains antibodies which help to fight future infection. This is called convalescent plasma.
Why does the NHS want plasma?
The health body recently assessed plasma donations from 435 recovered coronavirus patients.
Prof David Roberts, NHSBT’s associate medical director for blood donation, said: “People who are more seriously ill produce more antibodies, which can be transfused to potentially help others.
“The evidence so far is that men and older people are more seriously affected by coronavirus,” he said.
They discovered that men were twice as likely than women to have high enough levels of antibodies in their plasma, while 70 per cent of former hospital patients had sufficient levels of antibodies in their plasma, compared to 31 per cent of donors who had a positive test but were not hospitalised.
Furthermore, only 10 per cent of people under the age of 35 were found to have high enough levels of antibodies, compared to 31 per cent of 35 to 45-year-olds and 40 per cent of people 45 and older.
How can convalescent plasma help a patient being treated for coronavirus?
If a patient has recovered from the coronavirus, their immune systems will have produced antibodies found in their plasma that could be used to help treat others.
The NHS outlines that this antibody-rich plasma can be “transfused to patients whose immune systems are struggling to develop their own antibodies”.
If plasma is taken from a patient “no sooner” than 28 days after they have recovered from Covid-19, it is “hoped” that their plasma “will contain a high level of this neutralising antibody”.
This should in turn help other patients currently suffering from the virus to “improve their speed of recovery and chances of survival”.
This treatment is currently being undertaken in national clinical trials, with the plan being to later make it widely available across hospitals.
How are plasma donations being undertaken?
“Two clinical trials have been given approval to determine if plasma donated by patients who have recovered from Covid-19 can help those battling the illness,” the NHS says.
These clinical trials are being conducted in collaboration with the NHSBT Clinical Trials Unit.
The NHS stresses that “if transfusions are shown to help patients”, then the trials will build in capacity to allow plasma to be collected and delivered to patients “at a large scale”.
Once you have arrived to donate your plasma, the process should take around 45 minutes.
Who can donate plasma?
In order to be viable as a plasma donor, you need to have either tested positive for Covid-19 or have exhibited clear symptoms of the virus.
However, donors who have confirmed coronavirus test results, people who are already blood donors and those who are “healthy enough to be able to donate” will be prioritised.
“It is important that donors have recovered and their body has had time to develop a good antibody response,” the health service states.
“For these reasons, we are currently collecting plasma no sooner than 28 days after recovery.”
When you submit your application to become a plasma donor, you will need to meet certain “eligibility criteria” and be able to travel to a plasma collection venue.
There are 23 donor centres, which are located in London, Manchester, Cambridge, Luton, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leicester, Bradford, Leeds, Newcastle, Lancaster, Liverpool, Stoke, Birmingham, Bristol, Gloucester, Oxford, Southampton, Poole and Plymouth.
Is anyone restricted from donating their plasma?
The NHS states that no one is prevented from becoming a plasma, blood or platelet donor “based on their sexuality”.
However, the rules for plasma donors are “the same as those for whole blood donors”, which includes limits on male donors who have sex with men.
“All men must wait three months after having oral or anal sex with another man before donating,” the NHS states.
“This rule applies to every man, regardless of their sexual orientation, whether they’re in a stable relationship or whether they use protection such as condoms or pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).”
The NHS outlines that this rule is in place in order to reduce the risk of any “very recently acquired infections” from being unsuccessfully detected.
It adds that “at a population level, men who have sex with men are at an increased risk of acquiring certain infections through sex”.
Earlier this month, critical care manager Andy Roberts was prevented from participating in a plasma trial after telling an operator over the phone that he was in a same-sex relationship.
His partner, Keith Ward, told ITV News that he felt “very angry”.
“We have been together in a monogamous relationship for more than 30 years and I previously didn’t know of this outrageous three month rule,” he said.
“It only goes to show that in the UK being gay is still thought as a form of contamination, so if you’re straight and sleep with a different person every weekend it’s safer according to [the rules].”
Laura Russell, director of policy at Stonewall, said that deciding who should be allowed to donate their blood or plasma “should be based on individual risk assessments, not on people’s sexual orientation”.
To become a plasma donor, contact NHSBT on 0300 123 23 23 or visit http://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk.